Wednesday, December 26, 2007

When downloading gets expensive...

A man who went on a TV show downloading spree after misunderstanding the terms of his cellphone contract has been hit with a bill for $54,000. The factory worker, 29, who fears being made bankrupt said: “I just laughed out loud. How on earth could I afford to pay that?” A loan, maybe? Santa?

Most people know that downloading TV shows doesn’t usually cost anything when you get them using BitTorrent.

However, Ian Simpson, a 29 year old factory worker found a way to make them cost - lots. After taking out a cell phone contract which he thought included ‘unlimited’ internet use (albeit with a ‘fair use’ clause), he got some advice from a friend who showed him how to connect his cell phone to his laptop.

According to a Stewart Maclean report in the UK’s Daily Mirror, Simpson said: “My mate told me how to wire my mobile to my laptop as a modem. It meant I could download faster than on the handset and get a proper internet connection in my flat.”

However, after downloading TV shows for a month, Simpson’s service was disconnected: “I probably downloaded 20 or 30 TV shows and four albums” he said. “I assumed it’d be OK, but they cut me off. I rang up and they said I owed them nearly £30,000.”

“If I’d known it would cost so much I wouldn’t have done it” he added.